Collection: ARTISTS' RESALE ROYALTY BLOCKCHAIN MANIFESTO

An art intervention at the intersection between creators and collectors, materials and technology. The Artists' Resale Royalty Blockchain Manifesto is an artwork and cultural sector provocation authored on 02 February 2022 by artist and curator Reuben Friend in collaboration with neurosurgeon Reuben Johnson. 

The Manifesto was drafted after extensive investigation into potential means of administrative infrastructure to implement resale royalty payments to artists on the value of artwork sold on the secondary market in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The Manifesto builds on Indigenous and Western examinations of the contemporary art market, with specific reference to Richard Bell's Theorem of 2022 that asserts fair and equitable compensation for Indigenous contemporary artists in Australia. The Manifesto also builds on the Siegelaub and Projansky Artist’s Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement written in New York in 1971 which sought to establish a legal basis for artists to assert their rights to licensing fees and royalty payments.

As with these two documents, the 2022 Reuben & Reuben Artist’s Resale Royalty Blockchain Manifesto has been proposed in the spirit of social security, detailing investment incentives for collectors and gallerists while acknowledging the technological capability that exists now to implement simple and automated mechanism to provide royalty payments to artists.

ART LDGR is an online gallery created by the authors as an extension of this artistic exploration of how new technologies can be applied in real world terms to empower artists.